Kutztown, University Ready To Begin Town's Recycling Drive

Kutztown University and the Borough of Kutztown are ready to begin the first comprehensive public trash recycling program in Berks County.

The university's administration building has been recycling scrap paper and aluminum cans for four weeks. The rest of the campus is to begin recycling next week.

The borough of roughly 4,000 in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country is scheduled to begin voluntary home separation of trash April 1. A public meeting has been set for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Kutztown High School cafeteria to explain to residents what they will be asked to do. The organizers of the program hope the public will cooperate.

The prime movers behind the recycling venture are said to be two Kutztown mothers, Dawn Scheppach and Linda Wood. But they refuse to take all the credit. They say university and borough officials have been very receptive to the idea of recycling.

"It's not like we had to convince anyone," said Wood. "Everyone understood that recycling is something that had to be done. The time was right."

Wood is an environment-minded person who has been recycling her family's garbage for years because "I realized there has to be a better answer than landfilling." She said she was disturbed by an "eyesore" of a nearby landfill. She also said landfills can contaminate drinking groundwater.

She is active with the Pennsylvania Roadside Council, a state agency that is coordinating community recycling programs. She is familiar with community recycling programs elsewhere in the state and knows the people who started the programs.

Scheppach is studying environmental sciences at the university and decided to initiate a community recycling program as a class project.

Both women are members of the Berks Resource Recovery Coalition, an organization whose goal is to promote public recycling programs.

Together the women approached university and borough officials late last year about their proposal to begin public and voluntary recycling at the school and in town. They say it would be the first communitywide and comprehensive recycling program in the county.

Scheppach said she was pleased with the cooperation they have gotten from the university and the borough. "They have been very receptive. That's why it's working so smoothly."

Don Scheetz, the borough superintendent, said that because of the landfill crisis the borough had been thinking about starting recycling, when the two women came to them with their proposal. "They were doing the legwork and helped us formulate a plan."

Reno Unger, the university's public relations director, said the women first met with university officials to discuss recycling. Robert K. Moyle, director of physical facilities at the university, is in charge of the university's program. Unger said Moyle has been pleasantly surprised by the level of cooperation from the secretaries and maintenance staff that have had to bear the burden of the recycling at the administrative building.

Unger said he is "astounded" by the amount of paper that is now being recycled. He said 3,000 pounds have been recycled from the administration building since recycling began there Feb. 11. Aluminum beverage cans from soda machines are also being stored for sale to a scrap dealer. He said the results are greater than expected.

Next week the entire campus begins recycling, Unger said. The goal is to recycle more than half the estimated 675 tons of garbage that the university generates a year. He said this should result in substantial trash disposal cost savings, besides the university getting money for the cans and glass they sell for scrap.

The university is giving its refuse paper to the Kutztown Fire Co., which will sell the paper and pocket the money. Unger said this is like a monetary donation to the fire company, which has been collecting newspapers around town for years.

The borough's recycling program will involve asking residents to separate their glass, cans and newspapers from the rest of their garbage and setting the recyclable material out at the curb, where borough employees will pick it up. Regular trash will also be collected.

The home separation program is entirely voluntary, Wood emphasized. She said she doesn't know how the people will respond.

She said a problem is that people don't have an economic incentive to recycle, because everyone pays the same disposal price no matter how much garbage he has. She said if people would have to pay on the amount of garbage they have, many more would recycle.